


Your Breath in my Lungs

by unremarkablegirl



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Asphyxiation, Brief mention of gross bugs, Buried Alive, M/M, POV Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:14:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27833611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unremarkablegirl/pseuds/unremarkablegirl
Summary: Prompt: Joe wakes up, trapped in a coffin and without a clue to where he is. Whoever buried him did not think to remove his phone, which is ringing incessantly. The worried voices of the rest of the gang are all he has for company as they desperately tries to locate him while he slowly asphyxiates over and over, a grim reflection to their sister in the sea.Excerpt: He was laying on something wooden, he could feel the rough material under his palms. Something brushed against curls, he stretched out and both his head and his feet came into contact with a solid board. He felt himself beginning to panic again, but for a different reason. He had a feeling he knew where he was, but he didn’t want to acknowledge it.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Nile Freeman & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani
Comments: 10
Kudos: 188





	Your Breath in my Lungs

Joe came to with a groan. His brain felt like it had been stuffed with cotton, his tongue fuzzy in his mouth, his eyes burning. His eyes slipped close of their own volition, only to shoot back open a moment later. He couldn’t see. _He couldn’t see._

He closed his eyes, opened them again, nothing. He blinked rapidly, swallowed, felt his throat closing, felt himself beginning to panic. Forced himself to calm before finally taking stock of the rest of his body, forced himself to ignore his lack of sight. 

He was laying on something wooden, he could feel the rough material under his palms. Something brushed against curls, he stretched out and both his head and his feet came into contact with a solid board. He felt himself beginning to panic again, but for a different reason. He had a feeling he knew where he was, but he didn’t want to acknowledge it. 

He swallowed, blinked, and ever so slowly, brought his hands up, up, up before they hit wood. He followed the span of the boards above and beside him as far as he could before bringing his hands down to rest on his chest. He could feel his heart beating, rabbit fast. He knew he had to calm down, he knew he had only a short supply of oxygen and he had already panicked when he thought he had lost his eyesight. 

He laid there, eyes open to the darkness, as his fingers tapped against his chest, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, inhale, then the other hand, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, exhale. He brought his heartbeat down, resolutely keeping his mind blank, resolutely did not think about his sister trapped in iron, resolutely did not think about his new home, his new forever. He drifted, eyes glazed, fingers stilled, for an indeterminate amount of time but he had yet to asphyxiate.

His mind came back into focus at the feeling of something trying to crawl up his leg. He wondered if he was hallucinating or if, perhaps, creatures had already found their way into the coffin. He wondered how it would feel to be eternally condemned to have maggots feed from his flesh, burrow into his lungs, and clog his throat, at least until the wood rots and he is left to choke on dirt as he ever so slowly claws his way to the surface, dying and coming back, blinded instead by dirt falling into his eyes and not the darkness of a coffin.

He noticed idly that the thing crawling up his leg had stopped. He could feel himself getting light headed, the oxygen in his new home dwindling. A twitch, starting first at his right eye, then his mouth, travelling down until his fingers are thrumming with restless energy. His mind struggled to come back online, his thoughts picked back up as he remembered his family and his love, as his tenacity came back to him, as he recalled the more gruesome of his deaths, as he wondered what had come over him. He decided, resolute, that the lack of oxygen was to blame for his despondence. 

What reason did he have to panic? What had caused him to doubt his power, his strength, his body? What had caused him to doubt his _family_?

He was brought back out of his thoughts by that thing crawling up his leg again. He paused, feeling its movements, realized it was stationary, realized it was vibrations that he felt. His phone. He fucking forgot about his phone. 

His hands fumble, slow and clumsy, at his pocket until he could drag his phone out. He answered the call, tapped, 1, 2, 3 times until he got the speaker button and then dropped the phone on his chest. 

The other end was silent before, “Joe?”

His love, his love was on the other end. He couldn’t bring himself to speak, his throat raw and dry. The best he could do was a rumbled groan. And, oh, how that hurt. He prided himself on his words, his eloquence, his silver tongue but here, he was trapped within a box and his voice was trapped within his body. He could not speak, could not offer comfort nor love to his dear Nicky. 

On the other end, a sigh, followed by a cacophony of noise as the others clambered to speak. There was Andy, her voice calm, devoid of emotion as she promised him that they’re on their way. He knew, he is certain, that she, too, was resolutely not thinking about the vastness of the ocean, the currents pounding against a metal home. Knew that her mind was blank but for her targets, knew she refused to imagine his situation lest she recall chains and imagine a bloated face. Her voice was a comfort, a steady lifeline that filled him with purpose, almost as if she had given him orders. 

Next was Nile, her voice threaded with steel as she promised retribution but underlying it was the soft waver of suppressed tears. He was struck then, by the realization that she was still so young, that she still had so much to learn and experience. Realized that this was her first time that one of them had been lost to the group, singular and alone, with no backup. She swore they were on their way, having just cleared out a warehouse and Booker was doing his best. 

At his name, Booker started speaking, a low timbre explaining his tracking software, numbing Joe and providing him something to focus on, letting him lose himself in the jargon. He knew that Booker was not the most eloquent of his family, that he was scared of loss, scared to put voice to his feelings. Knew this explanation, this attempt at losing himself in his work was a sign of his love. 

Booker’s voice faltered and then it was quiet. On the other end, a sigh, followed by a voice like the night sky. Nicky. His love stuttered a few times, some false starts, as he cast around for a topic, light and airy. He knew his love, knew that his confessions, his dreams, and his promises belonged to the night, were whispered only in the presence of the stars as they lay tangled together. It did not bother Joe, he was more than fine being the one to shout their love from the rooftops, he knew Nicky would never stop him from laying out his love like seeds to be nourished by the sun, would never stop him from letting his promises dance among the sun rays. Nicky’s love was cool like the moon’s light but burned with the intensity of every star in the galaxy. 

Nicky had settled on a mission report, this mission’s report. He retraced the group’s steps, told him about how they got worried when he didn’t come back from the supply run. Joe followed the events, their plans, their attack on the warehouse, Nicky’s time alone with the leader they had left alive. As he let Nicky’s voice wash over him, he felt his fingers tingle again, knew it was a sign of oxygen depravation. He lost himself to unconsciousness, unaware of when his heart stopped beating. 

He came to, Nicky was still speaking, he could not make out the words. His head lolled to the side, he could not feel his fingers nor his toes. He lost himself in the cadence of Nicky’s voice. He thought about fighting the pull of unconsciousness, didn’t see the point, slipped under much sooner than the previous time. This goes on, he’s lost count, wondered if he had even kept tally to begin with.

The next time he woke, there was a cacophony of noise on the other end. He was not cognizant enough to recognize the sounds of slamming doors and clanging shovels. He did not know that his family was near. His lungs ached. He slipped away. 

He came to, his heart sluggish. He was unaware that the light of his phone had gone out, the battery dead. He was unresponsive to the sounds of shovels against dirt, did not hear the shouting from above, nor the feel the vibrations when shovels hit his coffin. His heart stopped just as the lid was lifted. 

The next time he came to, his lungs filled with oxygen, expanding to their limits. He laid there, breathing deep and slow, feeling the grass beneath his palms, stared up at the night sky from between the branches. He had been buried in a forest, that explained why it had taken so long. 

He lifted himself to his elbows, before he could go further, a flask was brought to his lips. He groaned as the water spilled into his parched mouth, glad to quench his thirst, unable to recall the last time his throat had felt like a wasteland. Once the flask was taken away, he lifted his eyes until they locked with his love. He could hear the others shuffling and murmuring in the background, knew they were giving them their privacy.

His lips curved into a smile as he brought his hand up to curl around his love’s neck. Nicky brought his empty hand up to mirror his gesture, touching their foreheads together, letting themselves feel the presence of the other. They came together in a soft kiss. They were amongst the trees of an unknown forest, laying next to the pit of his temporary grave but as his breath intermingled with Nicky’s, he knew he was home.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi/prompt me on [tumblr](https://unremarkablegirl.tumblr.com) :)


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